‘Small scale fishing should be exempted from WTO talks’
Commerce Ministry officials maintain that India will push against any form of curbs on its subsidies to poor fishermen at the WTO and also seek a moratorium on fishing subsidies from advanced countries including the US and EU during the upcoming inter-ministerial.
“We advocate for a policy like the ‘Coastal Rights Bill’ that not only protects the interests of the government’s goals in sustainability of fish stocks but percolates down to the specific needs of small-scale fisheries (SSF) in India,” NFF added.
Ahead of the WTO’s inter-ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi later this month, the National Fishworkers Forum (NFF’s) has written to the commerce and industry ministry asking it to protect the interest of small fishermen by pushing World Trade Organization (WTO) to keep small scale fishing out of fisheries subsidies negotiations later this month.
Commerce Ministry officials maintain that India will push against any form of curbs on its subsidies to poor fishermen at the WTO and also seek a moratorium on fishing subsidies from advanced countries including the US and EU during the upcoming inter-ministerial.
“India is the only country where small-scale fishers fish in large numbers and we hardly have deep sea fishing. Over 70 per cent of the fishermen are below the poverty line and for us, fishing is a livelihood issue. Fishermen are not responsible for decline in fish. It is because of other factors like industrial pollution, global warming and coastal degradation which has affected the fishers,” Olencio Simoes, General-Secretary – National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) said at a press briefing.
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